China has been grappling with the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant since July 20, when a cluster of Covid-19 infections were detected among airport cleaning staff in the eastern city of Nanjing.
Since then, it has spiraled into the worst outbreak China has seen since 2020, spreading to more than half of the country’s 31 provinces and infecting more than 1,200 people. The surging cases driven by Delta were seen as the biggest challenge yet to China’s uncompromising zero tolerance virus policy.
Local authorities responded by placing tens of millions of residents under strict lockdown, rolling out massive testing and tracing campaigns and restricting domestic travels.
And on Monday, the country reported 21 imported cases and zero locally transmitted symptomatic infections — the first time no local cases have been recorded since July 16. It also reported 16 asymptomatic cases, all of which were imported too, according to the NHC. China keeps a separate count of symptomatic and asymptomatic cases and does not include asymptomatic carriers of the virus in the official tally of confirmed cases.
If the trend continues, China could become the world’s first country to control a major Delta outbreak.
Doubling down on zero-Covid
China is one of a number of countries, including Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, that have sought to completely eradicate Covid-19 within their borders.
Authorities closed off borders to almost all foreigners, imposed strict quarantines for arrivals, and launched targeted lockdowns and aggressive testing and tracing policies to stamp out any cases that slipped through the defenses. And for more than a year, these measures had been largely successful in keeping cases close to zero.
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